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Symmetry between worlds

We created artwork for a Writing tip (Looking-Into-A-New-Year) and artwork can, of course, tell more than one story!

The story of this second tip, a Drawing tip, is about symmetry.

Humans and mice occupy very different worlds. These characters have different behaviors, they are very different sizes, their stories may have very different elements.

However, when we illustrate stories, we often use one world to help us create the details in another world: symmetry. (One definition of symmetry is “the quality of being made up of exactly similar parts.”)

A closer look reveals that the mouse is very similar to the boy. The mouse is dressing in a tuxedo coat and bow tie, he is looking in his small mirror of broken glass, and he has writing implements, paper and push pins—all things you find in the human world.

Thinking in terms of symmetry can quickly build up a very nice collection of details in an illustration!

If we were to go the other direction and make the boy’s world more like a mouse’s, what details would we include, I wonder.